Former president of the federation of private medical associations Dr Milton Lum said the commission could either report its findings to the public or to Parliament so as to keep track of the nation’s progress in becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

He said 2050 is a long way ahead but Malaysia needs to set what are the milestones that the country wants to achieve and who reports the milestones and to whom.

“There are talks about climate change but nobody seems to be quite bothered about it because it is not something that is immediate or threatening. It doesn’t sink in but if it is an immediate threat such as Covid-19, everybody becomes a bit more compliant to mask wearing and physical distancing,” he said as a guest speaker on Bernama TV’s programme “The Nation: The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health” here today.

“Everyone has to recognise that there is a problem and this means that the authorities have to educate the population that there is such a (climate change) problem.

“The government has to devise the methods to address it and to get those methods accepted and implemented by the population. This is a very big challenge,” he said.